Sunroof jammed (the dreaded) 5 door f1

hi all, despite all the usual freelander problems, I was smug that the sunroof hasn’t been one of them until now. The motor started slipping then gave up completely slightly tilted, I managed to almost close it using the slot on the motor, before it jammed completely, won’t turn either way. Due to the likely bank holiday rain, I got a bit heavy handed and ‘pushed’ it shut from above, Today I stripped it down as far as I could, I’ve definitely broken the cam guides (almost certainly due to the heavy handed push down, but I can’t tilt it to get it in position to free the wind deflector or remove the rail. It’s completely jammed. Any ideas, I’m stuck as what to do and why it might be completely jammed. Thanks for any thoughts. Martin

What happens is that when the gear slips the sides are not aligned and then breakage happens as you have found! If you have dropped the motor and taken each side guide and cable out of the roof then it should be possible to take it apart and find the broken parts. Kits of spares are now cheap on ebay. From memory there are pins and slides to remove. I did one side at a time so that I could use the other as a pattern for reassembly. Rave manual helps and shows how to align for tilt /slide when reassembled.

Have you removed glass panel? Wind sheild then unclips.

andyfreelandy said:

Have you removed glass panel? Wind sheild then unclips.

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Yes, but the wind shield won’t come out because the rails are stuck down

andyfreelandy said:

What happens is that when the gear slips the sides are not aligned and then breakage happens as you have found! If you have dropped the motor and taken each side guide and cable out of the roof then it should be possible to take it apart and find the broken parts. Kits of spares are now cheap on ebay. From memory there are pins and slides to remove. I did one side at a time so that I could use the other as a pattern for reassembly. Rave manual helps and shows how to align for tilt /slide when reassembled.

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Many thanks, I haven’t managed to get the side guides out, although I’ve removed torque screws, won’t budge, but I’ll persevere, I bought a repair kit a while back in anticipation of problems, so have the spares. It does sound like the slipping motor caused some misalignment.

They are stuck with sealant and make sure cable is free to pull out by dropping motor and releasing from clamps behind interior lamp.

andyfreelandy said:

They are stuck with sealant and make sure cable is free to pull out by dropping motor and releasing from clamps behind interior lamp.

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Ah, hadn’t figured on sealant, So may need a bit of a leverage? Haven’t released the cables either, from behind motor, (motor is out) do they just pry out? couldn’t quite see how they released.

Clamp with bolt in middle. You may need to drop front headlining to see it. I used a flexi camera and worked by 'feel'.

andyfreelandy said:

Clamp with bolt in middle. You may need to drop front headlining to see it. I used a flexi camera and worked by 'feel'.

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Thanks, that really helps, I’ll give that a go, all makes sense, I’ve got the head lining out anyway, I’m going to re cover it while it’s out as I did a partial bodge job on it last year as It had the Land Rover sag.

andyfreelandy said:

Clamp with bolt in middle. You may need to drop front headlining to see it. I used a flexi camera and worked by 'feel'.

Click to expand...

Thanks for all the tips. Spent a few hours on it, couldn’t see how to get the rails back together after getting out and taking apart, but after much persistence I eventually found I was putting it together wrong. Calibrating was a case of trial and error, mainly error, but got there in the end. Working again, but don’t know if I trust it, I don’t fancy taking it all apart again!!!

I've decided I'm going to tackle this shortly too. My sunroof has been sealed down, not by me, but to my horror I pulled back the sunroof sunshade and the rust is monumental! I highly suspect I'm going to be opening a can of worms with this as I suspect the roof is going to have suffered some serious rust too from how bad the sunroof is... anyone else found a rusty roof on this job?

It was one of those jobs I wished I never started and it’s still not totally finished. Wasn’t too much rust on mine, not bad for a 52 plate

When I bought mine six months ago I was puzzled why the switch didn’t work the motor, all sealed up. Don’t know whether to have a go at sorting or leave well alone. Can’t see any rust anywhere tho.

My conclusion on the sunroof is that you either have a working sunroof by not using it, or you use it which will break it in no time.

So I choose not to use it!

My sunroof works fine, does not leak and is not rusted up. The only reason I know it works is that occasionally I hit the wrong button when opening the passenger side window.

The only benefit I can see to sunroofs in Land Rovers, is that they hold the roof lining up.

GrumpyGel said:

My conclusion on the sunroof is that you either have a working sunroof by not using it, or you use it which will break it in no time.

So I choose not to use it!

My sunroof works fine, does not leak and is not rusted up. The only reason I know it works is that occasionally I hit the wrong button when opening the passenger side window.

The only benefit I can see to sunroofs in Land Rovers, is that they hold the roof lining up.

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Lol.

I have a slightly different opinion on them. I think operate them once a week to keep the parts moving and a bit of a lube once in a while. It seems to have kept mine smooth. I had to replace the glass a while ago though because of the rusting glass frame. It's not leaked since.

GrumpyGel said:

My conclusion on the sunroof is that you either have a working sunroof by not using it, or you use it which will break it in no time.

So I choose not to use it!

My sunroof works fine, does not leak and is not rusted up. The only reason I know it works is that occasionally I hit the wrong button when opening the passenger side window.

The only benefit I can see to sunroofs in Land Rovers, is that they hold the roof lining up.

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I agree fully with this